Hospitality payroll, run against the award and against your sales.
Payroll is the biggest number in most venues and the easiest one to get quietly wrong. Two things have to be true at once: it has to be compliant, and it has to be affordable against the trade it is covering.
Compliant
Most venues sit under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 or the Restaurant Industry Award 2020. Between them they carry casual loading, evening and weekend penalties, public holidays, split shifts, overtime and minimum engagement periods. Getting a classification wrong is not a rounding error, because it repeats every pay run until someone catches it.
- Award interpretation and classification checked at setup, not assumed
- Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 reporting on every run
- Super guarantee at 12%, paid on time, because late super is not deductible
- Leave and long service accruals kept on the books instead of appearing as a surprise
- Termination pay, redundancy and final pay calculations when they come up
Affordable
Compliance tells you the wage bill is correct. It does not tell you whether you can carry it. That is a ratio question, and it is the one we answer every month.
| Line | Where we want it | Where it starts costing you |
|---|---|---|
| Wage cost | at or under 30% of sales | 35% is where we start calling it a leak |
| Food and beverage cost | at or under 36% of sales | 40% and the menu needs work |
| Prime cost, wages plus stock | at or under 62% of sales | 68% and the venue is running for someone else |
| Rent | at or under 10% of sales | 15% and the site has to earn its keep |
The bands we work to on a standard single-site venue. Licensed venues, function work and heavy takeaway sit differently, which is part of the conversation.
When wage cost runs hot, the cause is almost always structural rather than a rate problem: staff rostered before the trade arrives, too many hands on a shift that does not need them, or a split that would work better as two shorter shifts. We work it back to the roster rather than telling you to cut hours.
Run the 60-second Margin Check on your own figures. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs in your browser.
What it costs
Most venues sit on Hospitality Margin Protection at $990 + GST a month, which carries the bookkeeping, payroll for up to five staff and BAS oversight underneath the monthly margin review.
Straight answers.
How many staff does the $990 plan cover?
Payroll for up to five staff sits inside it. Beyond that we price the payroll separately so you are not paying for a tier you do not need.
Can you fix historic underpayments?
We can calculate the exposure and help you correct it. Whether and how you disclose it is a decision we walk through with you.
Do you do rosters?
No, the roster is yours. We tell you what it cost and where the structure is expensive.
Stop finding out in July.
Fifteen minutes, direct with Pink. We look at your real numbers and tell you where the margin is going.